In a few hours, Harry Potter fans all over the world will crack open the final book in JK Rowling's saga, and all speculation will end.

The answers to questions like, "is Snape really evil?" "Does Harry die at the end?" and "exactly how dead is Dumbledore," will once and for all be answered.

Many websites and reams of fanfiction will become obsolete. Worse, an entire genre of conversation will perish overnight. Time was, you could keep a discussion of the 41 reasons to believe Snape was loyal to Dumbledore going for a week.

I'm one of those people who's enjoyed speculating so much I've written entire novellas in passionate imitation of Rowling, and it causes me a pang to know that the speculations that flooded into my head today in the bathtub will be irrelevant tomorrow.

I'm counting the minutes til I can claim my copy, but in the meantime, I'm wondering: Is JK Rowling hard-hearted enough to kill off Hagrid? Lupin? Some of the Weasley clan?

Would she really make killing Voldemort cost Harry's life? Is Snape really going to turn out to be an ungrateful, moustache-twirling villain? And is RAB still alive?

How much darker are these books going to get, and will they ever regain the brightness and optimism of the first two books? There are a few lines I really hope and pray Rowling doesn't cross.

Personally I won't be a bit surprised if Snape re-enters the picture & walks Harry through vanquishing Voldemort, only to turn on him and attempt to steal his glory and his identity in the end. Nor will I be surprised if Snape redeems himself by stepping at the last between someone and a fatal blow, although I will find it very gratifying.

I'm sure the mind of JK is fertile enough to have crafted an ending none of us could have guessed at. I'm hoping she leaves the Wizarding World intact, and enough characters alive at the end, that fans can still spin fantasies of their own about these incredibly real characters. The Potterverse has been a great place for the meeting of minds. When readers lay down the seventh and final book, an era will end.

By tomorrow the Internet will be humming with excited revelations, and we'll probably get a year or so's conversation over the final answers. But I'm going to miss the questions. It's the questions that have really kept these books in the limelight all this time. Here's hoping that along with the answers, the final book leaves us with some new questions, ones that will be worth speculating on and arguing over, for as long as the books are in print.

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Edited by titannia at 07/20/2007 9:27 PM